Goodbye, Columbus: And Five Short Stories

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

"A masterpiece."—Newsweek

The prize-winning first book that instantly established Philip Roth as a major literary voice and as an unflinching, sharp observer of life—especially Jewish lives in postwar America.

Goodbye, Columbus follows the relationship between Neil Klugman, a working-class kid from Newark, and pretty, Radcliffe-bound Brenda Patimkin from the wealthy suburbs. They embark on a summer affair that introduces Neil to a new and unsettling society of sex, leisure, and loss. The novella is accompanied by five remarkable short stories that illuminate the lives of the American Jewish diaspora.

“Superior, startling, incandescently alive.”  - New Yorker

“A masterpiece.” - Newsweek

“Unlike those of us who come howling into the world, blind and bare, Mr. Roth appears with nails, hair, teeth, speaking coherently. He is skilled, witty, energetic and performs like a virtuoso.” - Saul Bellow